Saturday, February 04, 2012

Sisters and brothers, I wonder if you’ve ever encountered the following situation. Someone has suffered some kind of setback in life. This someone is carrying a heavy burden. Maybe she has experienced failure in her career. Or in a relationship. Maybe someone else has betrayed her. Or a loved one has died. Whatever it is, she’s very upset. She’s experiencing a whole host of different feelings. Intense feelings. She’s angry at everyone. Perhaps even at herself. She goes to a friend and demands an explanation. Why has all this happened to her? Why?! She is a good person. What has she ever done to deserve all this?

Initially, with every good intention, the friend tries to address her questions. Tries to give her some answers. But, of course, nothing seems to work. In the face of all the hurt feelings, nothing appears to make sense. Finally, the friend decides just to keep quiet and to listen. She allows the other to ventilate. To pour out all the pain that’s inside. Then, at some point, the friend stretches her arms out toward the wounded one. And hugs her. No more words. Just a hug. At first, the other tries to wriggle free. But the friend persists. Gradually, the resistance is overcome. The storm of anger subsides. The person accepts the embrace. Tears are shed. By the one who is doing the comforting, as much as by the one being comforted. Of course, practically speaking, there really has been no change in the situation. Whatever it was that caused the setback–the failure, or death, or betrayal–has not been taken away. And none of the person’s questions has actually been answered in any satisfactory way. But, even so, something significant has happened. Somehow, there’s been a breakthrough. Although still suffering, the person is now no longer trapped in the past. For some mysterious reason, a light is seen at the end of the tunnel. Hope is born anew. And it all begins with flesh connecting with flesh. It all begins with a hug.

In the first reading too, we find someone bearing a heavy burden. We are familiar with Job’s story. He is a righteous man. Someone who faithfully keeps God’s laws. And God has blessed him with great wealth. But then, for some unknown reason, God decides to allow Job to be tested. In a series of disasters, Job loses first his property, and then his family, and finally, even his health. So that, when we meet him in today’s first reading, Job is filled with upset feelings. He complains to God. He speaks of the burdensome nature of human life. We work hard. But the money we earn, we cannot keep forever, even though we might delude ourselves into thinking that we can. Also, our lives often feel so empty and meaningless. Our riches do not satisfy us. Not only do we worry about safeguarding our possessions, but we’re also always looking forward to something else. In the day we wait for the night. And at night we long for the dawning of the sun. Never satisfied. Always restless.

For Job, these are not just casual observations. They are descriptions of his own experience of suffering. And they contain a whole series of difficult questions, which he addresses to God: Why do you let this happen? Why make us work so hard, only to allow us to suffer, and finally to die? Why? What is the meaning of it all?

These are deep questions. Painful and pressing questions. More importantly, these are also our questions. For we are like Job. We too are people of many burdens. Whether we are rich or poor, man or woman, foreigner or local, in different ways, and at various points in our lives, we all experience the tiring struggle, and the anxious restlessness, of everyday life. And there’s a part of us that wants to do what Job does. We wish to demand an explanation from God. In our uniquely Singaporean way, we want to ask why?! Why like that?! What is the meaning of it all?

And it may, at first, distress us that an answer is not to be found in our readings today. At least not the kind of answer that we think we are looking for. Nowhere in our readings does God answer the question why?. And yet, God does not ignore us completely. God does respond in some way. For we, who are Christian, believe that, to all our difficult questions, God really offers only one response. God sends us his Son. In our gospel today, we do not find Jesus telling us the reasons why we have to suffer. But what we do find is a summary of all that Jesus did and taught in the early days of his ministry. Tirelessly, Jesus goes about curing the sick, and casting out devils. But his concern is not so much with the healing and the exorcism, as it is with spreading the news that God is with the people. Such that, even though people beg him, Jesus will not allow himself to stay too long in any one place. Why does he do all this? And what possible connection might Jesus’ actions have to Job’s questions? To our questions? We begin to appreciate the connection only when we recall who Jesus is. Who we believe him to be. He is the Word of God that became flesh. Which means that, in him, God answers all our questions in the flesh. Much like the friend in our story, in Jesus, God responds to our painful queries by reaching out to us and giving us a hug. In the ministry of Jesus, God enters into and shares our pain. In him, flesh finally makes contact with flesh.

But that’s not all. Jesus is not just any other friend. And the hug he offers is no ordinary embrace. Jesus does more than just share our sufferings. He also shows us the way to live through them. While Jesus may not tell us the reason why we have to suffer, he does show us how to bear our sufferings in a way that leads to life. In the gospel, Jesus works as hard as anyone else, if not harder. But he does not experience his work as an empty, meaningless burden. Instead, Jesus is deeply conscious that he is fulfilling a mission given to him by his Father. He occupies himself only with his Father’s business. And, to do this, he prays regularly. He seeks his Father’s advice. He receives guidance and strength from his Source. We’re told that in the morning, long before dawn he went off to a lonely place and prayed there.

To receive God’s hug, then, is to model our lives after Jesus. This is what we find Paul doing in the second reading. Like Job, Paul describes his life in terms of slavery. But what is strikingly different is that Paul claims that this is a burden that he bears freely, for a particular purpose. Though I am not a slave of any man, I have made myself the slave of everyone so as to win as many as I could; and I still do this, for the sake of the gospel, to have a share in its blessings. Like Jesus, Paul does not think of his hard work as a meaningless imposition. Instead he sees himself as having been sent on a mission. A responsibility has been placed into his hands. But Paul was not always this way. There was a time, back when he was still named Saul, that he was a very angry man. It was only after his encounter with the Crucified and Risen Christ, on the road to Damascus, that he was transformed. Having received God’s embrace, he spent the rest of his life embracing others unto life.

And what of us, sisters and brothers? We who call ourselves Christian. We who live among many who suffer. Many who ask the same question that Job asked: Why?! Why do I suffer? We who gather here to celebrate God’s love for us in Christ. Aren’t we called to share this love with those who need it most?

Sisters and brothers, is there perhaps someone in your life who needs a hug today?

6 comments:

"I don't know what to say" is perhaps an authentic response in offering comfort. We are often lured by well intentioned verbiage and end up not consoling.Our need for intimacy in times of joy and sorrow are realized with a touch, a gentle hug or a genuine nod. We need a listening ear to release our charged moments.In prayer we learn that God listens and provides solace. Human presence helps to reaffirm this. Am I always present to the Other? Am I listening?It is in this gift of loving relationship that we offer consolation to one another in times of need. Lord, may I be your instrument for what is essential, to be your disciple.

I spent a lot of my life offering those around me hugs of love and comfort. the problem comes though, when I get so comfortable in that embrace, that for my benefit, I choose not to let go.

It seems almost strange that I never quite considered that my role is simply to remind them of God's presence in their lives, instead of asserting my presence in theirs. Thanks for pointing that out, and reminding me that I haven't actually done too badly in spreading the awareness of God's presence. I guess i just need to learn when and how to hug and let live.

For a long time in my life, I have also poured out my ill feelings to the Lord. I don't know whether I've received his embrace, but I know that each time, with or without tears, my spluttering ended a strange sense of peace. Maybe He was hugging me then and I've been quite clueless. All I know is that like Peter, I can never walk away from Him because "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

Perhaps I'd received God's hug in the past without even my knowledge, if I'd have known I would not have done stupidly things on myself in the past. To overcome work stress and unhappiness or relationship failures, I took laxatives, sleeping pills ocassional alcohol with girlfriends which ended up in vomitting, just to release the emotional stress. But when everything was over, I gained nothing only regrets on why I had done this to myself.

Although It usually took me a long time to pick myself up again, during those times, I witnessed how I was much better off than others, which led me to realize how stupid I was. It was through this discernment that made me a much stronger person, and even now if I have to go through failures, I tell myself, "Don't worry, I will pull through." It is God's invincible power that has given me a hope in His hug.

God's love for us is so immense that He even sacrificed his son, Jesus to take our sufferings. Each time as I recalled how Jesus was crucified on the cross, and written in this two verses of Via Dolorosa, I felt the wrench in my heart.

He was bleeding from a beating, there were stripes upon His backAnd He wore a crown of thorns upon His headAnd He bore with every stepThe scorn of those who cried out for His death

Down the Vía Dolorosa called the way of sufferingLike a lamb came the Messiah, Christ the King,But He chose to walk that road out ofHis love for you and me.Down the Via Dolorosa, all the way to Calvary.

That Someone who needs or I would want to give my hug to, will be Our Lord in return for God's love for me in the past.

Breaking News: Ordinary Time

Apart from those seasons having their own distinctive character, thirty-three or thirty-four weeks remain in the yearly cycle that do not celebrate a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ. Rather, especially on the Sundays, they are devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects. This period is known as Ordinary Time. Ordinary Time begins on Monday after the Sunday following 6 January and continues until Tuesday before Ash Wednesday inclusive. It begins again on Monday after Pentecost and ends before Evening Prayer I of the First Sunday of Advent. This is also the reason for the series of liturgical texts found in both the Roman Missal and The Liturgy of the Hours (Vol. III - IV), for Sundays and weekdays in this season.–General Norms for the Liturgical Year and Calendar, 43-44

Power in the Breaking

The Road to Emmaus

Then they said to one another, 'Did not our hearts burn within us as he... explained the scriptures to us?' They set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem... Then they told their story of... how they had recognised him in the breaking of bread. - Luke 24:32-35 (NJB)

Words at liturgy are spoken not simply or primarily for the sake of information. Words are proclaimed at liturgy so that God can do something among us for our sakes and our salvation... The power of the proclaimed word is that it causes something to occur among us. Every time we proclaim the scriptures at liturgy "they are fulfilled in [our] hearing."- Kevin W. Irwin, Models of the Eucharist

When a person is touched by the Word obedience is born, that is a listening that changes life.- Pope John Paul II, Orientale Lumen #10

(T)he meeting between God and people in liturgy may - and probably should - provoke discomfort. Rituals behave - as Jesus did in his ministry - parabolically, and hence worship is not a self-congratulatory exercise where we showcase "all the great stuff we're doing." The point of our coming together in prayer is not congratulation and comfort but challenge and change. Even when we arrive at the church doors aglow with prosperity and success, we enter only by "acknowledging our failures and asking the Lord for pardon and strength" (Order of Mass, Penitential Rite). We become a community of the forgiven. And when we mourn and lament our loss, at the funeral of a loved one, we still accept the invitation to come before God "with praise and thanksgiving" (Eucharistic Prayer I), and to acknowledge that "all your actions show your mercy and love" (Eucharistic Prayer IV).- Nathan D. Mitchell, Meeting Mystery

In the liturgy, properly celebrated, divisions along lines of sex, age, race or wealth are overcome. In the liturgy, properly celebrated, we discover the sacramentality of the material universe. In the liturgy, properly celebrated, we learn the ceremonies of respect both for one another and for the creation, that allow us to see in people and in material goods, 'fruit of the earth and the work of human hands,' sacraments of that new order which we call the justice of the kingdom of God.- John J. Egan, quoted in Keith F. Pecklers, SJ, Worship: A Primer in Christian Ritual

The future of liturgy is the future of the Church.... Celebrating the liturgy is itself the primordial source of renewal in the Church. We learn the liturgy by celebrating it. The more we succeed in celebrating the liturgy, the more we'll live the Christian life fully and the more we'll succeed in transforming the Church... The great ideals of the Church are in crisis today in part because there's a crisis in the liturgy. The great ideals of ecumenism, of internal reform of the Church, are all connected. The crisis of the liturgy places in crisis these other great values, because the (Second Vatican) Council wanted to confront these challenges of the mission of the Church, of reform, of dialogue with the world, by beginning with the liturgy. If the liturgy is the source and summit, then we foster in the liturgy the kind of life we need to meet these great goals. If these great movements of the Church are in difficulty today, we have to look to the difficulty in the liturgy.

Body for the Breaking

(cc Atilla1000)

(This) is about getting away from a view of the Church that is very seductive and very damaging - and very popular. This is the view that the Church is essentially a lot of people who have something in common called Christian faith and get together to share it with each other and communicate it to other people 'outside'. It looks a harmless enough view at first, but it is a good way from what the New Testament encourages us to think about the Church - which is that the Church is first of all a kind of space cleared by God through Jesus in which people may become what God made them to be (God's sons and daughters), and that what we have to do about the Church is not first to organise it as a society but to inhabit it as a climate or a landscape. It is a place where we can see properly - God, God's creation, ourselves. It is a place or dimension in the universe that is in some way growing towards being the universe itself in restored relation to God. It is a place we are invited to enter, the place occupied by Christ, who is himself the climate and atmosphere of a renewed universe.... But somehow or other, we all have to undergo a fairly fundamental conversion from seeing revealed truth as a possession to be guarded to seeing it as a place to inhabit; not one bit of territory that needs protection, but the whole world renewed. We shall not proclaim Christ effectively if we are constantly reverting to what makes us anxious rather than what makes us grateful. All I have said so far implies that the priest's task is centrally and essentially to proclaim that world renewed - in personal care, in public teaching, in sacramental action. And the point of such proclamation is to tell the assembly of believers who they are in God's presence, what it is to be involved with and in the priestly act of Jesus Christ and what that means in the daily interactions of human life in terms of reconciliation, judgement, risk and gift...- Rowan Williams, The Christian Priest Today (Friday 28 May 2004)

Broken Elsewhere

Jesuit Corner

Our Identity:What is it to be a Jesuit? It is to know that one is a sinner, yet called to be a companion of Jesus as Ignatius was...(General Congregation 32, Decree 2, #1)

Our Mission:Ours is a service of faith and of the radical implications of faith in a world where it is becoming easier to settle for something less than faith and less than justice. We recognize, along with many of our contemporaries, that without faith, without the eye of love, the human world seems too evil for God to be good, for the good God to exist. But faith recognizes that God is acting, through Christ's love and the power of the Holy Spirit, to destroy the structures of sin which afflict the bodies and hearts of his children. Our Jesuit mission touches something fundamental in the human heart: the desire to find God in a world scarred by sin, and then to live by his Gospel in all its implications... We can now say explicitly that our mission of the service of faith and the promotion of justice must be broadened to include, as integral dimensions, proclamation of the Gospel, (inter-religious) dialogue, and the evangelization of culture. They belong together with the service of faith... because they arise out of an attentiveness to what the Risen Christ is doing as he leads the world to the fullness of God's Kingdom...(General Congregation 34, Decree 2, # 11, 20)

Jesuit Spirituality:(W)e can describe Jesuit spirituality by a set of life-giving and creative tensions. Jesuits are to be men of prayer for whom spiritual means are primary, yet they are asked to use all the natural means at their disposal for their apostolic work. They are to be disciplined men purified of inordinate attachment to worldly values, yet actively engaged in the world; they are, indeed, expected to find God in their activity. They are to be distinguished by their poverty, yet able to carry out their apostolic activities among the wealthy as well as among the poor. Jesuits are to be chaste and to be known as chaste, but are expected to be warm and loving companions at home and on the road, that is outside of cloister. They are to be men of passion, intelligence, initiative and creativity, yet responsive in obedience to superiors. They are to be committed to the people and institutions with which they are involved, yet able to move quickly to whatever place superiors send them. They are expected to be men who believe that God's Spirit communicates directly with individuals, including themselves, and thus who are discerning regarding the movements of their hearts, yet also to be men distinguished by disciplined obedience and fidelity to the institutional church... Jesuit spirituality functions best when these tensions are alive and clearly felt, that is, when Jesuits experience in themselves the pulls of both sides of each polarity. Jesuits are at their best, for example, when they are attracted to spending much time in prayer and have to control that attraction for the sake of their apostolic activity, or when Jesuit theologians experience the tension of being faithful Roman Catholics and of searching for new ways to express the truths of faith in a different age and culture...(Barry & Doherty, Contemplatives in Action: The Jesuit Way)

Quotable Quotes:

As long as we remain in the polarization of conservatives and progressives, of left and right, we will paralyze and block apostolic freedom and response. The Spirit is pushing us forward on the way to him who makes all things new, who will build up with us a new earth and a new heaven, the city of God. Instead of looking suspiciously at one another, let us look together to Christ.- Peter Hans Kolvenbach, SJ

In the document in which we considered our charism, we say that in looking at Jesus we understand who we ought to be. "Remaining" in him. We all know that it is not through guidelines or directives written for others that the Church and the Society will change. They will change if we know how to become new persons.... The Gospel takes us still further. It tells us that everything we have done is for mission.... At the very heart of the sending is the "remaining.".... We are sent because we have entered into Christ and it is Christ who has sent us. The mission has its source... in our encounter with God, but it ends in others. It begins with Christ and it ends with others -- in their joys, in their hopes, in their sufferings...- Adolfo Nicolas, SJ

From General Congregation 36

It is our union with one another in Christ that testifies to the Good News more powerfully than our competences and abilities.... In our individualistic and competitive age, we should remember that the community plays a very special role since it is a privileged place of apostolic discernment.... The Jesuit community is a concrete space in which we live as friends in the Lord. This life together is always at the service of mission, but because these fraternal bonds proclaim the Gospel, it is itself a mission. –Companions in a Mission of Reconciliation and Justice (CMRJ), nn. 7-9.

With the poor, we can learn what hope and courage mean.... In our communities and apostolates, we hear the call to rediscover hospitality to strangers, to the young, to the poor, and to those who are persecuted. Christ himself teaches us this hospitality. –CMRJ, nn. 15-16.

At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is the transforming encounter with the mercy of God in Christ that moves us to a generous personal response. The experience of the merciful gaze of God on our weakness and sinfulness humbles us and fills us with gratitude, helping us to become compassionate ministers to all.... For us Jesuits, compassion is action, an action discerned together. Yet we know that there is no authentic familiarity with God if we do not allow ourselves to be moved to compassion and action by an encounter with the Christ who is revealed in the suffering, vulnerable faces of people, indeed in the suffering of creation. –CMRJ, nn. 19-20.

(T)he Society must respond more decisively to the Church’s call for a new evangelization, giving special emphasis to ministry to and with the young and with families.... A special gift Jesuits and the Ignatian family have to offer to the Church and her mission of evangelization is Ignatian spirituality, which facilitates the experience of God and can therefore greatly help the process of personal and communal conversion. –CMRJ, nn. 22-23.

In many societies, there is an increased level of conflict and polarization, which often gives rise to violence that is all the more appalling because it is motivated and justified by distorted religious convictions. In such situations, Jesuits, along with all who seek the common good, are called to contribute from their religious-spiritual traditions towards the building of peace, on local and global levels. –CMRJ, n. 28.

Pope Francis has emphasized the fundamental connection between the environmental crisis and the social crisis in which we live today. Poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization are linked with environmental degradation. These are not separate crises but one crisis that is a symptom of something much deeper: the flawed way societies and economies are organised. The current economic system with its predatory orientation discards natural resources as well as people. For this reason, Pope Francis insists that the only adequate solution must be a radical one. The direction of development must be altered if it is to be sustainable. We Jesuits are called to help heal a broken world, promoting a new way of producing and consuming, which puts God’s creation at the center.... The multifaceted challenge of caring for our common home calls for a multifaceted response from the Society. We begin by changing our personal and community lifestyles, adopting behaviour coherent with our desire for reconciliation with creation. – CMRJ, nn. 29-30

By sending us to 'those physical and spiritual places which others do not or have difficulty reaching,' the Pope entrusts to us the task to 'build bridges of understanding and dialogue,' according to the best tradition of the Society, in the diversity of its ministries.- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 6

To be missioned to this work 'at the New Frontiers of our times' always requires that one also be rooted at the very heart of the Church. This tension, specific to the Ignatian charism, opens the way to true creative fidelity.- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 13

In every mission that we carry out, we seek only to be where (Christ) sends us. The grace we receive as Jesuits is to be and to go with him, looking on the world with his eyes, loving it with his heart and entering into its depths with his unending compassion.- Decree on Identity, n. 15

For ultimately, there is no reality that is only profane for those who know how to look. We must communicate this look and provide a pedagogy inspired by the Spiritual Exercises, that carries people - especially the young - into it.- Decree on Identity, n. 10

Our ministries of proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Life of Christ in the sacraments continue to be fundamental for our mission and our lives together as Jesuits.- Decree on Mission, n. 19

The complexity of the problems we face and the richness of the opportunities offered demand that we engage in building bridges between rich and poor and establishing advocacy links of mutual support between those who hold political power and those who find it difficult to voice their interests. Our intellectual apostolate provides an inestimable help in setting up these bridges, offering us new ways of understanding in depth the mechanism and links among our present problems.- Decree on Mission, n. 28

Jesuit community is not just for mission, it is itself mission.- Decree on Mission, n. 41

In this global context it is important to highlight the extraordinary potential represented by our character as an international and multicultural body. Acting consistently with this character can not only enhance the apostolic effectiveness of our work but in a fragmented and divided world it can witness to the reconciliation in solidarity of all the children of God.- Decree on Mission, n. 43

Faith in Jesus Christ teaches us that self-realization comes from self-giving and that freedom is not so much the power to choose as the power to order our choices toward love. At the same time, love for Jesus Christ and the desire to follow him call us to trusting commitment. Commitment to the Word Incarnate cannot be separated from commitment to the concrete manifestations of the Word that are at the center of our lives, the Church and the Society which exists to serve the Church.- Decree on Obedience, n. 19